Land reform minister urges lairds to accept community buy-outs as 'right thing'

Scotland’s new land reform minister has argued lairds and farmers should now accept it is desirable that communities can buy part of their properties as she argued that land ownership is still too concentrated.

Roseanna Cunningham told a conference hosted by Scottish Land & Estates that it was “understandable” that communities who have little say in how local land is managed feel angry and left out.

Addressing an audience of landowners, she said that it was right they begin to think about purchasing the property using controversial new right-to-buy powers and said “if you all accept that” then then relations can be better than in the past.

She clashed with David Johnstone, Scottish Land & Estates’ chairman, who attacked as “simplistic” her view that too much land is in the hands of too few. He argued that much of the land in the Highlands was difficult to farm, and therefore larger holdings were required for it to be economic.

But he admitted that the behaviour of some landowners helped fuel the stereotype of uncaring, autocratic lairds despite the majority having close links with their communities.

Nicola Sturgeon has made the legislation a priority, arguing that is it not right that only 432 owners have half the private land north of the Border. The SNP has set a target of having a million acres in community ownership by 2020.

Ms Cunningham argued the concentration of land ownership was behind some of the difficulties in rural Scotland and giving communities the power the buy plots against the will of owners was “actually the right thing to do.”

Pressed on what “sustainable development” means, to trigger a forced sale, she joked that would require a “whole other conference”. She later said that no clear, “five-line” definition had been produced in the years it had been discussed.

She said: “Lawyers don’t like definitions that are too tight because if you start making things too defined then you, by definition, exclude things from it.”

The minister said it was broadly understood as meaning creating a long-term benefit that would not have a defined end point but Mr Johnstone argued the definition should be framed more narrowly, saying: “That then gives more certainty from a landowning or farming perspective.

“The farmer or the landowner can be sustainably using that land for a long period of time and yet still in theory have that land removed from them for somebody else’s sustainable development. Where you have the lack of clarity, there’s potential for conflict within there.”

Ms Cunningham used her speech to argue that the land reform agenda would complement the Scottish Government’s aim to grow the rural economy rather than hinder it.

Ms Cunningham refused to say whether the Scottish Government will reconsider controversial changes allowing tenant farmers without successors to sell on their tenancies, saying it was a matter for Fergus Ewing, the new Rural Affairs Minister.